PHA-Exchange> On poverty (2)

[schuftanc at who.ch]

 Here are some more facts you ought to master to better structure your
discussions on poverty:

Policies that increase the incomes of the poor enhance the productive
capacity of the whole economy.

A country pursuing redistributive policies could reduce poverty even if its
total income did not grow... but we are hard-pressed to find real-world
examples.

The poor remain poor because they cannot borrow against future earnings to
invest in education, skills, new crops and entrepreneurial activities. They
are cut off from economic activity because they are deprived of many
collective goods (property rights, public safety, infrastructure) and lack
information about income opportunities.

The debate on what's first, growth or poverty reduction is a meaningless
debate that diverts attention from the questions that should be our real
focus: what works, how and under what circumstances.

Although some progress is being made in poverty alleviation in some places,
it has been painfully slow, as the gap between rich and poor countries
continues to grow.

In most countries, poverty reduction strategies are inseparably linked to
debt relief operations, to tariff reductions in the rich countries and in
many cases to tax reform. Debt relief has to be linked with poverty
alleviation programs WITH civil society participation in the
decision-making.

To hold governments accountable, indicators of the social impact of reforms
implemented and of poverty beyond income need to be tracked.
Just recently, the combination of lower Third World commodity prices and
higher oil prices resulted in trade losses of 15% in half of the poorest
countries. The debt service of these same countries increased on average
from about 17% of exports in 1980 to a peak of about 30% of exports in 1986.
In 1997 it was 15%.

Claudio
aviva at netnam.vn